Automatic teller machines for dispensing money in the form of bank notes and/or coins usually are located at locations distant to each other such as branch banks, so-called cash points or other facilities authorized for receiving and/or dispensing money. The money to be dispensed is provided in the automatic teller machines in money cassettes, so-called ATM cassettes (ATM stands for automatic teller machine), which at regular intervals or on current demand are exchanged for filled money cassettes by a secure carrier. The exchanged emptied or half-emptied money cassettes are returned to a central bank or a so-called cash center, which is authorized to receive, check and dispense money and usually is located at a site of the secure carrier, and replenished in a secure surrounding there. A manipulation during the refilling operation is nearly excluded here, since usually a supervision by controlling personnel in combination with further monitoring measures (e.g. video recording) is given. Furthermore, ATM cassettes for the most part are equipped with a locking mechanism, which can only be opened with the aid of special tools or methods and therefore prevents an access during the transport.
This method requires a high expenditure of time and logistics and accordingly is expensive. It is therefore a basic matter of concern to transport only money instead of money cassettes filled with money.
In WO 00/31696 it is therefore proposed to equip every branch bank with a special self-service apparatus permitting an autonomous emptying and replenishing of the money cassettes. For this purpose the cassette to be filled is removed from the automatic teller machine, inserted into the self-service apparatus, the required number of bank notes to be replenished is automatically determined and shown to the operator. The operator then feeds a respective number of bank notes into the self-service apparatus, the bank notes then being automatically checked and loaded into the money cassette.
Such an apparatus, however, has roughly the size of a conventional automatic teller machine. Thus it is not only space-intensive but at the same time respectively expensive. In addition the feeding of the bank notes into the self-service apparatus is not sufficiently protected against manipulations.
In WO 00/31695 instead the use of expendable cassettes is proposed. A transport of the emptied cassettes there and back then is no longer necessary. With this solution several expendable cassettes are inserted into an automatic teller machine and successively brought into position. A cassette being in an operating position is opened automatically, and the bank notes, on individual demand of a customer, are provided in respective number directly from the cassette. As soon as the cassette is empty, it is disposed of in a self-maintained fashion and the next cassette is brought into position.
The use of expendables in general is rather undesirable due to waste disposal problems. In addition, particularly disadvantageous is the fact, that the system described above cannot be integrated into existing infrastructures. In fact the existing automatic teller machines would have to be replaced by special automatic teller machines suitable for the use of expendable cassettes.